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Blythe was born free in the heart of the resistance, right under the capital of the Old Empire, in the underground ruins which were once the subways of New World Center. By the age of 15 she was already a feirce opponent in hand-to-hand combat, even amongst her peers who were in the same place and situation. She was also a brilliant tactician.

Simon's right pupil directed the cursur on the small lens in front of him. He moved from camera to camera about the neighborhood above, watching the thin blue lines dissappear as the Red Birds approached and reappear as the moved away from them. They showed no sign of concentration on any specific area, but he had a feeling they were planning something. There was no evidence, and the feeling was empirically unjustified, but he insisted on spending the day watching them.

"I want you to stay here if anything happens. We'll need someone watching to tell us where they are."

"My infant brother could do that for you, Simon." Blythe retorted without lifting her eyes from Sun Tzu's Art of War. "Or perhaps you could have one of the drones do it for you. I doubt anyone would notice. The manager-gods are a little slow these days I hear. That way I can be out there saving your ass from the Red Birds the next time you slip on shit."

"Will you never let me live that down?? That happened ONCE, only once, and I've saved your ass more times than I can count and I'm afraid one of these days you'll be spacing out contemplating the meaning of a hamburger and I won't be there to parry the blade coming down on your neck."

"Just shut up Simon. Seriously. Don't pretend you don't know I'm the better swordsman."

"Wouldn't that be swords...woman?"

Blythe rolled her eyes and kept reading. "We need allies in thier world. Spies."

Simon actually took his eye off the lense to turn around and look at her, "And how in the world do you propose we accomplish this?"

Blythe looked away from the book in thought for about ten seconds.

"I don't know. But it has to be done. I'd be willing to bet they have people down here with us."

"What?? Impossible. We all know... everybody knows every... if they did they'd know where we were and we wouldn't be able to hide from them!"

"The Red Birds only know what they're allowed to know."

"What??"

"The same stuff you're looking at, is all the information they have access to."

"Blythe. You just said you thought they might have spies down here with us - with blue armor and rebel's swords I suppose??"

"Yes. And I didn't say I thought there might I said I'd be willing to bet."

Simon scratched his head. "But... if they were on their side then wouldn't the Red Birds know them? Have some kind of... communication with them?"

"Not nessesarily. Do you really think the Empire is as simple as Red Birds and invisible Kings, Simon?"

Simon looked toward the tracks for a few seconds then returned his eye back to the lens. "Wait... Blythe... tell the others... I want you to stay here Blythe..."

"What? What is it??" Blythe pushed Simon aside and saw the lens for herself... 15 Red Birds on a course to meet in the air directly above Lexington Station.

"Go to the sewers, Blythe, stay with Baggit. You'll be safe."

"Fuck you, you'll be dead, he'll be safe and I'll come and get him after we get rid of these guys."

"Look, you're fifteen years old, Blythe, and I'd never forgive myself if... anything... Look, I promised your mother before... that I'd..."

"That you'd interfere with my free will? Fuck off and put your mask on there's no time. We can argue about this later." Blythe picked up a microphone and pushed the button on the side, "If you're willing to fight, come to the surface. The rest evacuate, go west." She put on her mask, pulled out her sword and gun and ran for the stairs, shot the chain, kicked down the gate, and kept running.

"Wait for the others Blythe! Damn you..." Simon ran after her, pulling his mask over his eyes. He overted his eyes from the light when he came up, hearing loud explosions and shouting. He saw Blythe several meters away shooting with her left hand. He looked to his right and saw three fully uniformed Red Birds shaking their hands. One of them picked up his gun and looked at it, before throwing it back down. "Blythe!!!"

She ignored him. She heard another jet and aimed carefully. Upon pulling the trigger, the jet exploded instantly. Two burning jets landed behind Simon and he spun around to see the others there. Eight jets were on the ground burning.

So far.

"Simon be careful I can't control where they land!" Blythe shouted as the three red armoured men ran toward her. She put her gun back in its holster and held up her sword.

Simon turned back around and yelled "What are you doing?!?" And he shot at the Red Birds, disabling two of them. Blythe killed the Third with her sword.

Twenty Masked Blues came to the surface at once.

The Twently Blues were stunned. Simon walked toward Blythe, and she took off her mask. She wasn't smiling.

"Just as I thought," she said quietly, and nodded.

"How did you do that?" He said as another jet circled around the building to the north.

"Watch" she said, pulled out her gun again and aimed carefully. "When they're pointing away from you... like that... on the left side..." She pulled the trigger and the jet burst into flames and crashed into the side of a building. She continued, a bit louder, "just a bit forward from the rear vent is a cooler. Behind that, from this angle, its all fiberglass that looks no different than the painted titanium. It needs to be thin there, otherwize it wouldn't be so aerodynamic like it is. And just behind the fiberglass is the reserve fuel container, but only from this angle. It's pretty dumb, but that's the way they did it."

"Why didn't you tell us about this??"

"Because I wasn't sure," she said. "It won't matter in a few days, they'll realize the weakness and change the design. But between now and then, we can do whatever we want. Get me the best marksmen and then they can train the rest."

Blythe's еxprеssiоn was suddely blank, and unfocused. Simon turned around to where she appeared to be looking and saw nothing, then turned around to look at Blythe again. She turned her head to the side, then turned around so that her back was facing Simon. She held up her gun at a 45 degree angle to open sky.

Simon looked back at the crowd and shrugged at the same instant Blythe shot. Simon saw a small explosion in the distance, then a bright dot falling.

********************************

...a room full of 30 metal folding chairs... a room with some unrecognizable ancient grafitti on a barely discernable huge poster of a smiling model in the original Underground America... the Subways.

Each wore the blue and black uniform of the Resistance, with a small red sword pointed upward at the left breast of each uniform. Pointed upward toward the open air, the open skies.

Simon was known to be among the most insane, the most daring, and the most outspoken. Not by any vote or hierchy, but by the flow of nature, Simon was the first to speak, standing out in front of the others with about three quarters of a chalk board propped up behind him.

"We have a tremendous opportunity here to strike such a blow against the Reds that they'll never forget."

A voice from the audience spoke up, a mother's voice, "Okay, isn't that a bad thing?? If we keep striking these blows they'll never forget then they'll keep using their infinite supply of weath to build bigger and better weapons, better survalence,"

Simon interjected, "Please, please just hear me out..."

She continued "I'm sick and tired of having to move from station to station like this, always terrified one day the ceiling will open up and some asshole will take my sons up to become corporate drones in that fucking fairy-tale hallucination, I don't want to do anything that will provoke them or risk,"

"Then you may be excused. We don't want anyone involved in this thing who - "

"That's no way to talk to your mother, Simon!" she stood up. A fifteen year-old Blythe sat in the front row, and looked down and shook her head, trying not to laugh and her 3 year old brother, Baggit, poked at her and grinned, not because he understood how embarassed Simon must be, but because Blythe was laughing.

"You don't just *excuse* your mother for trying to protect -"

"Look, this is a meeting to discuss our next move. You don't want us to move at all, well thats fine. You can go play in some virtual reality simulation, but in the real world there's work to do and we're the ones the God has put right here, right underneath the Capitol of the Old Empire, so it's our job the make Damn sure the Resistance continues."

"I don't like it Simon. I don't like it one bit."

"Mother, please leave. We'll discuss this another time."

"I'll stay. I've said my peice."

"Fine. As I was saying... a certain young genius has found a weakness in the new model of personal jets used by the presidents of the corporations, so if she would please come to the board and explain what I can only barely understand, then we can find a way to exploit this weakness. Hopefully. We all know the Kings and their Cousins are nothing without their Army of Aritocrats, so if there is some way we can get them all to crash simultaniously, or something, then... Blythe?"

Blythe cleared her throat and stood, walking to take the chalk away from Simon. "Thank you for that... introduction." Blythe said, trying not to laugh.

"Shut up." Simon said, only about a quarter joking.

"Wait!" someone said from the audience, and they were all silent long enough to hear footsteps running down the tracks, off in the distance...

Blythe took one silent step toward the rails, with her hand ready at the handle of her sword. She listened as the steps grew louder, spashing where there were puddles, then heard panting and saw a man in blue appear around the bend...

"The Reds are coming!"

Blythe picked up Baggit by his armpits and handed him to Simon. "Take him, get out of here, hide in the sewers - GO!"

A few people got to see how the chain of command really worked among those fanatics who kept this feeble front-line resistance alive. Just after a cement wall was closed and sealed, with Baggit and Simon safely on the other side, Bythe put on her mask, with her left hand pulled a gun out of her waist holster and a sword out of a shieth with her right. Half a second later, the other 27 did the same.

Blythe looked at the stunned messenger. "Take us to them"

He was still panting, "Have you lost your fucking mind??"

Blythe let out a sound more of shock than pain and looked down to see that furry red dart in her chest. Her knees gave out under her.

The day Sergent Lee's men shot her with a tranquilizer and plugged her into the Machine was a blow to both the spirit and the potential of the resitance.